At 16 she ran away to San Francisco and joined the psychedelic drag troupe, the Cockettes, where she was known as Bobbi Cameron, sometimes Bobbi Venus. Bambi Lake describes her as looking like a 1930s Vogue magazine evening-gown model; Judy Carne says that she looked like Rita Hayworth.
Bobbi was in two of the Cockettes films: she played the lead role in Tricia’s Wedding, 1971, and was Cynthia in Elevator Girls in Bondage, 1972. Then she was recruited by the Chilean director, Alejandro Jodorowsky for a role in The Holy Mountain, 1973, as the factory girl seduced by Fon, the boss.
Actress Judy Carne visited the set of The Holy Mountain, and befriended Toni, who was already taking female hormones. Judy accepted to play Sally Bowles in Cabaret in Toronto, and hired Toni as her personal assistant to help with makeup and wardrobe. She discovered that Toni had never learned to read, and taught her how.
Judy took a bad fall and completed the gig singing from a wheelchair. When the show moved to Chicago, she suggested Toni as a replacement for one of the chorus girls who had had to drop out. Toni’s number was ‘Two girls’, but she unfortunately sang it a few octaves too low, and one of the newspapers ran a headline: “In Cabaret, not all the Girls are Ladies”.
Homophobic catcalls started coming from the audience. Local restaurants refused service to the cast, and their landlord tried to evict them. Judy lost several gigs in the next year or so.
Fon's girl in The Holy Mountain |
*Not the Canadian guitarist, nor the Scottish footballer.
- Alejandro Jodorowsky (dir & scr). The Holy Mountain, with Alejandro Jodorowsky as the alchemist, Bobby Cameron as Fon’s Working Girl. Mexico/US 114 mins 1973.
- Judy Carne with Bob Merrill. Laughing on the Outside, Crying on the Inside: The Bittersweet Saga of the Sock-It-to-Me Girl. New York: Rawson Associates, 1985: 203-6.
- Bambi Lake with Alvin Orloff. The Unsinkable Bambi Lake: A Fairy Tale Containing the Dish on Cockettes, Punks, and Angels. San Francisco: Manic D Press, 1996: 30, 45, 48-9.
- Fayette Hauser. The Cockettes—Acid Drag & Sexual Anarchy, 1969-1972. Process Media, 2020: 83, 114, 238, 274, 327,
See also the article on Bobbi's brother Loren, a photographer.
Bambi calls her Bobbi; Judy calls her Toni. I used Bobbi Cameron as the title of the article as it is the name used in IMDB.
Judy says that she married a dentist; Bambi that she married a cop.
Bambi calls her Bobbi; Judy calls her Toni. I used Bobbi Cameron as the title of the article as it is the name used in IMDB.
Judy says that she married a dentist; Bambi that she married a cop.
Man, I only knew her from the Holy Mountain movie, always thought she was a biological women until I heard the directors's comentary. Anyways, great blog!
ReplyDeleteBobbi, later to be known as Cameron professionally (she changed her name into Roberta Jean Oppenheimer), is the most gorgeous trans woman I have ever seen. She was already absolutely beautiful before her transition, during the Cockettes and after. She has one of the most important roles in the movie "Sunset Strip" by Paul G. Volk, and in 2003 she created the burlesque show "Cameron's Bump and Grind" on which she worked as writer, producer, director, seamstress, set painter, carpenter and lead actress portraying the show star Crystal Divienne. I love her, she's a wonderful woman.
ReplyDeleteSee her from the first Rock N Roll music film/video
DeleteUtube "Intersection 1972"
I need to contact her.
Film being accepted to UCLA Film Archive
robskeltonemail@gmail.com
Hey...does anyone have a way to contact Bobbi? The Utube "Intersection 1972" is getting a restoration from UCLA we hope very soon...How can I get her to come to the UCLA Archive Premiere?
DeleteRob Skelton - Producer.....robskeltonemail@duck.com
There's no evidence that Toni/Bobbi Cameron is the same person as "Cameron", aka Cameron Oppenheimer the background actor from Star Trek. The Memory Alpha talk page has comments from people who claim to have known her for *decades*, and the IMDb roles associated with Bobbi Cameron aren't mentioned at all, and neither are "Cameron's" roles mentioned on Bobbi's IMDb page.
DeleteEvidence: both born in 1953; neither on record denying being the other; Marjorie, the aunt of Bobbi and Loren, was sometimes just Cameron, so it is likely that the niece would continue the family tradition; the Loren Cameron papers at Cornell, explicitly says "2 photographs of Loren and Cameron Oppenheim (one of Loren's three sisters)". See https://rmc.library.cornell.edu/EAD/htmldocs/RMM07677.html.
Delete